Review: Embrace of a Leper by Prof. Egya E. Sule

Review: Embrace of a Leper by Prof. Egya E. Sule *** Let me start by invoking the idea of the poststructuralist historian Hayden White. In all his work, mainly centred on what he calls “the historical imagination”, White has consistently maintained that there is just a slim divide between history and literature. In his view, all historians and philosophers of history, like literary writers, are engaged in narration, in emplotting events; and in doing so historians, like the literary writers, depend on tropes or literary devices such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (White particularly identifies the four) to tell or to put in perspective whatever they consider as facts. Histories are thus subjective stories, gaining force of acceptability by an imagination which is largely manifested in the historian’s capability to deploy those literary devices. White concludes that histories are “verbal fictions, the contents of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in the sciences”. Historical events, White has stubbornly insists, are value-neutral. No historical event is, for instance, intrinsically tragic; it is only tragic deepening on how the historian emplots or encodes it. From such perspective, we need not worry about the facticity or what some of you may call the God-given truth of the events Ogezi has dramatised in Embrace of a Leper – a drama that I am sure is capable of stirring debates among historians working on central Nigeria. Ogezi’s book is literary, what literary scholars would call a historical drama – a subgenre, since Shakespeare, that has tended to confound literary and history scholars mainly because of the literary licence the playwright often deploys to excuse her distortion of “facts” in the eyes of the “owners” of the history. Natives of Keffi, descendants of the past emirs and their palace attendants, may consider themselves as the owners of the history emplotted in Embrace of a Leper. They are likely to contest the story in Ogezi’s drama. Daughters and sons of other ethnic groups within the Keffi area (Eloyi, Yeskwa, Eggon, Mada, Panda) are also likely to contest the story. But Ogezi, as a literary artist, as a playwright, offers us a drama, something more than history, a dramatisation of human struggles in the face of colonial domination, racism, and violence. Captain Maloney is His Majesty’s imperial representative in Keffi; his project is to get Keffi and its environs under the absolute control of the British government. He is, however, faced with stiff opposition from the “Mohammedans” installed in Keffi through an earlier colonial project: the colonisation of northern Nigeria by the Arabs and the subsequent jihadist movement that brought the Hausas from the far north to brutalise the natives of Keffi. Rather than see the crisis as occurring between the natives of Keffi and the British colonial government, as some audiences of Embrace of a Leper might think, it is in fact between two colonial powers, the Arab and the British, leaving the real natives of Keffi as the proverbial grass that suffers when two elephants fight. The fieriest of the Mohammedans is Magaji Dan Yamusa, a warrior described by the playwright as “a man of few words, whose taciturnity often finds an outlet in his hasty and fiery temper”. Indeed his few words are disturbing insults on the natives of Keffi and its environs whom he, along with other Muslim Hausas, calls “pagans”, “infidels” or “kafure”. Just like the British colonial government, the Emirate of Keffi is still engaged in its task of colonising the natives, raiding their villages and taking them as slaves. The emirate in Zaria, where Keffi is answerable to, is “not satisfied with a hundred slaves and a handful of crops and livestock annually” from the palace in Keffi. To get more slaves for Zaria and for Keffi, Yamusa is poised to “attack the pagans in daytime. [Because] The infidels are only fit for slavery. We do them a favour by saving them from the wrath of Allah by raiding them. Eaters of pigs!” The shrewd British Resident, Captain Maloney, sees as a veritable excuse to crush Arab colonialism what he considers the Emirate’s inhumanity to the natives. But before he does that by taming the blood-thirsty Yamusa, the same Yamusa, unprovoked, beheads the British Resident. Expectedly, the British take the advantage to deploy their superior weaponry and effectively take over Keffi and other bigger northern Nigerian towns. While it is troubling that Ogezi’s Embrace of a Leper fails to give a voice to the so-called “pagans” (the drama is annoyingly silent on how the Mohammedans institute their power in Keffi, as though Keffi was a virgin land grabbed by the jihadists), the real natives of Keffi and its environs, it clearly portrays the incredible damage Arab and British colonialisms have inflicted on indigenous ethnic groups such as Eloyi, Eggon, Mada, Yeskwa, Panda, Agatu, and others. And although the drama lays no explicit claim to any radical project of contestation and interrogation, it is one welcome attempt at revisiting our pasts – perhaps something in the line of a people, according to Chinua Achebe, knowing when and where the rain started beating them. It is in this regards that I consider the book a vital historical drama especially about a society, about diverse ethnic groups, that still suffers from internal colonialism and cultural haemorrhage. To return to Hayden White: Ogezi has given us a drama in which he emplots historical events from his perspective. We need many more of such literary works, from diverse perspectives, including those with a stronger tenor of radical probing, of radical action towards recuperation. Meanwhile, we must salute the playwright Ogezi for reminding us of one of the most critical historical moments of our lives. [End]

Interview with Isaac Attah Ogezi, author of Under a Darkling Sky by newbooksnigeria

Interview with Isaac Attah Ogezi, author of Under a Darkling Sky by newbooksnigeria Isaac Ogezi, a lawyer and writer, has been variously described as having what it takes to reinvent and reinvigorate the declining Nigeria drama, a star whose iridescent light will not twinkle briefly but linger long on our literary firmaments, and an important and outstanding literary dramatist. For a record second consecutive time last year, he was awarded ANA/Esiaba Irobi Prize for Drama and that was coming at the heels of several other Prizes that have trailed in his literary career. His latest (published in 2012), Under a Darkling Sky, is a biographical drama based on the life of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian environmental activist and writer who was hanged by the Military Government of General Sani Abacha, alongside eight others in the wake of a widely criticized trial on what many insist were thumped up murder charges with the sole objective of silencing his criticism of government and the environmental degrading activities of crude oil extraction multinational petroleum companies in the Niger Delta Regions. In Under a Darkling Sky, Ogezi tackles issues which are as relevant today as they were nearly two decades ago. The playwright talks about his aspirations and motivations for writing Under the Darkling Sky in this interview. The Book Congratulations on your recently published play, Under a Darkling Sky. I consider it an important work of literature for its significance to the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta and Nigeria as a whole, and an ambitious writing deserving applause. OGEZI: Thank you. You have succeeded in making me blush like a young lady who is told that she is pretty and she does know it. Oh God, am I not enraptured? Can you share a bit of your background with us to help us understand what made you write Under a Darkling Sky? What is your particular interest or motivation for telling this story? And why did you choose the genre of drama to tell it? OGEZI: Yes. I was born to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ogezi about thirty-six years ago. Benue State-born, I attended both my primary and post-primary schools in Nasarawa State. I then proceeded to the University of Jos, Jos, for my LL.B (Hons.) after a brief stint at the then School of Preliminary Studies (SPS), Keffi, where I studied literature at the advanced level. I was fifteen years old and in my third year in the secondary school when I lost my father. His demise opened my eyes to the floodgate of injustices which my mother experienced raising a family as a widowed peasant woman. It was these injustices that I witnessed as a young, innocent child growing up in a cruel, dog-eat-dog world that informed my decision to be a lawyer. What motivated me to write Under a Darkling Sky was not only to expose via the weapon of stage drama the sham trial and execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogonis in 1995 but also to bring into the foggy memories of the living one of the darkest moments of our chequered history as a nation. Man has a penchant to forget the past and in the process, keeps recycling his mistakes without learning from them. The choice of drama as a medium came to me naturally given the fact that the subject matter could be best handled through the instrumentality of the stage, the theatre of dreams and emotions. Drama can speak to the literate as well as the unlettered. In a world of drama, the walls of class differences, creed and colour come crumbling down. Please give us a nutshell insight into this play based on the life of Ken Saro-Wiwa? What part(s) of his life did you set out to capture? OGEZI: Under a Darkling Sky captures the life and times of a post-civil war Saro-Wiwa in a tumultuous period when oil had become the mainstay of his country’s economy. His beloved homeland, Ogoni, bore the brunt of this oil exploration and exploitation. Devastated and brutally raped by the oil activities of multinational oil companies like Shell and Chevron, there appeared to be a concerted disregard for the health-hazards to human habitation, and what was worse, the development in Ogoniland is not commensurate with the amount of environmental degradation. Saro-Wiwa’s almost pathological love for his Ogoni people set him at loggerheads with the demented Abacha dictatorship but he remained undaunted until he was eventually martyred. What I set out to depict in this play was a Saro-Wiwa rather late in his life and his role as an environmental activist-cum-writer who could not compromise his stand until he had to pay the supreme price of losing his life for his Ogoni people. How do you make up for this in the course of the play for the early part of his life that would have told how he came to be the irrepressible activist he was? OGEZI: I didn’t intend to make it up in any way. When I was writing this play, I was fully conversant with the fact that there is a whole world of difference between a stage play and a television documentary. A playwright, who cannot draw a line of demarcation between these two variant forms of communication, may fall foul of prolixity which will definitely nauseate his audience. I totally agree with Soyinka when he said in the early stage of his dramatic career about five decades ago that the cardinal sin of a playwright is to bore his audience. Any aspect of Saro-Wiwa’s life that I didn’t include in this play was either not stage-worthy for me or that it was better suited for a television documentary. What part of researching and writing the play did you consider the most challenging? OGEZI: Well, taking a look back to the periods of incubation, research and finally settling down to write this play, I must confess that the experience was edifying as well as salutary. I quite agree with the truism that when you enjoy what you’re writing, the chances are that your readers will enjoy reading it. I was so carried away with the euphoria of chronicling theatrically the life of a great man that I cannot remember the birth-pangs that accompanied the whole exercise. Perhaps, if there was any challenge at all, I’d say it was the trial scene. Even as a practising lawyer, I discovered that Saro-Wiwa’s trial and conviction along with the eight other Ogonis alone were enough to make a full-length play. So the obvious challenge was how to deploy the dramaturgical resource of selectivity to trim it down to as few pages as possibly without estranging the reader or viewer with unnecessary legal jargons. The play is set in the volatile Niger Delta, would you say this is a volatile play? OGEZI: Not at all. I insist that my play is not volatile like the Niger Delta. This is because I’ve taken my subject beyond the enclave of the Niger Delta to the realm of universality. Just like in poetry, emotion can be individual and privatist and yet be garbed with the toga of universality through supreme artistry or craft. The life and times of Saro-Wiwa as chronicled in this play serve as a metaphor for all minority struggles against the backdrop of oppression and genocide, anywhere and anytime, and I want to believe that even if the Niger Delta crisis is over today, this play cannot cease to be relevant or become dated because the emotion encapsulated therein is universal, timeless and borderless. Is there any particular message you wish to send out with this play? OGEZI: Yes, it is simply the evil of dictatorship and the inexplicable waste of important lives. The “darklingness” of our sky is without doubt foreboding in Nigeria, nay, Africa as a whole and most developing nations of the world. The heart of darkness that is inherent in man despite our highfalutin level of civilization is quite alarming. I expect a lot from this play; I think a lot of people do. I certainly think the whole of the Ogoni people would expect a lot from this play, seeing as Ken Saro-Wiwa was their hero and martyr. Have you, in your own opinion, done this man and this subject justice? OGEZI: Personally, I’m always wary of self-aggrandizement. I’m not also a masochist to indulge in a macabre self-flagellation. I leave the readers and critics to judge whether I’ve done justice to Saro-Wiwa and the subject or not. But let my critics take warning on how they wield the critic’s scythe inordinately because I like taking on my critics on a head-on collision not minding the casualties that may be left behind in the process! Moreover, for a lot of people this might be the only glimpse of the man, back to life, as it were. How close to truth is this work? How much is fact, and how much fiction? OGEZI: In my brief introduction to the play, I did forewarn the reader not to expect a strict constructionist approach to the subject which would have been stale, stilted and jejune. Facts in real life when not skillfully handled in art can be stranger than fiction, and vice versa. Be that as it may, I want to assure my reader or viewer that this play is very close to truth based on my painstaking research, and to prove this, over ninety percent of the characters are real life characters with their real names and most of them are still alive and kicking. I had only utilized the dramatic licence to abridge time and space; to put my words into their mouths in line with their psychological make-up as exhumed by my research. I feel confident to say that the play is over ninety-five percent fact and the other five percent mere literary embellishments on fact to make up for any missing gaps. Merging fact and fiction, how difficult or easy was this for you? OGEZI: It was easy for me because of my free, self-confident spirit as a playwright and also coupled with the fact that I pride myself with knowing the nitty-gritty of the theatre. I was not under the bondage of ensuring that every episode was historically correct as many uninitiated playwrights are wont to be. After all, dramatic licence allows one to tamper with history to suit one’s purposes. In Soyinka’s great play, Death and the King’s Horseman, the incident of the play took place far before the Second World War but in the hands of Soyinka, the war was made to happen during the time of the incident and his aim was more than achieved to expose the beastly, not-too-perfect nature of the whites themselves from the eyes of the Elesin’s been-to son, Olunde. One of the things I find endearing about drama is the immediacy of the medium and how it brokers no romanticising. It doesn’t so much tell as show the character and ask you to draw your own conclusions. Still, it is easy to glamorize a character beyond reality. Does Under a Darkling Sky reveal any weakness in the man Saro-Wiwa? OGEZI: I’m afraid that that is a rather difficult question to answer. If I say yes, I convict myself and the same thing goes if my answer is in the negative. It is an unpalatable choice between the devil and the deep blue sea! Suffice it to say here that any objective reader who has gone through the gamut of historical materials on the Saro-Wiwa saga like I have done cannot help but feel deeply for the man and the other eight Ogonis who were judicially murdered. Admitted that the killing of the four Ogoni chiefs by the mob was unwarranted, unholy, ghoulish and unjustified, but to then kill nine people in their place before it was properly proved beyond reasonable doubt that they aided and abetted the killings was ear-wrenching. Don’t forget that they were executed when the time within which to appeal against the decision of the kangaroo tribunal had not elapsed. When I was writing this play, I did not contrive to make Saro-Wiwa an angel that couldn’t hurt a fly but I allowed the creative muse to guide me. The rest is left for the critics to do their work. And the other eight who were hanged along with Ken Saro-Wiwa, is there room for their veneration in Under a Darkling Sky? OGEZI: In the play, they are shadow or minor characters in this play and belong to the crowd. They only feature somewhat prominently during the trial scene. We don’t know them much about them. Even in the historical materials and sources I was privileged to study, they were unknown until their execution along with Ken Saro-Wiwa shot them into limelight. I leave that judgment for my readers and critics to determine whether I have venerated them in this play or not. I would have imagined that you would have courted a closer association with the historical subject of this work in your title, for instance, or by the use of a sub-title. Was this something you considered and then decided not to pursue? OGEZI: No, I never for once thought of appearing patronizing to the reader. I abhor with every ounce of passion in me any air of condescension and patronage from any author of a work of art to his reader. In as much as I hold my reader in very high regard as an intelligent being, I also feel that titles that court a closer association with the historical figure-character or subject of the work like the use of sub-title would only belittle the artistry of the work. Writing about Sir Thomas More in 1966, Robert Bolt did not need to use an associative title but simply A Man for All Seasons, and it is still a timeless dramatic piece till date. Can you imagine Ken Saro-Wiwa in the year 2012, what do you think would have been different in Niger Delta and Nigeria? OGEZI: Yes, Saro-Wiwa in year 2012 would have been a better Nigeria for us. His fight for his Ogoni people was the microcosm for all the minorities in the contraption called Nigeria and beyond. His life was ruled by passion – truth, justice and true federalism. There would not have been any militant group in the Niger Delta today let alone any fabulous amnesty were the Nigerian nation-state sensitive to the Ogoni and other minorities cries more than a decade ago. Let us not forget that it was Saro-Wiwa’s state-orchestrated death that conflagrated into the Niger Delta crisis that we have today. Since non-violent dialogue of MOSOP was viewed as an anathema by the barbarous Abacha government, perhaps, the Niger Delta people felt the language of violence would be more comprehensible to the government, hence the birth of several militant and counter-militant groups in the Niger Delta. What are your expectations for Under a Darkling Sky? Have you considered staging it for a live audience? OGEZI: What sets drama apart from the other genres of literature is akin to the dichotomy between the written word and action, that is, when the written word is made flesh on the stage. While the former cannot shoot a gun, happily enough, the latter could do worse than that. It can incite the audience into taking to the streets to enforce the changes that it has long yearned for. In 1925, when the American most famous playwright, Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms was staged, it caused a lot of furore just like his previous play, All God’s Chillun Got Wings in 1924. I expect the reader or audience to be touched by the charade of justice meted out to Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogonis enough to stamp its feet emphatically on the ground to resist any future re-occurrence. I also expect the reader or audience to be fundamentally entertained and moved by the high sense of the large-scale tragedy of a great man enough to attain purgative height of catharsis. Yes, there are grand plans underway to stage this play in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Bori (the headquarters of Ogoni people) and all the major cities of Nigeria. I see this play being staged on the Broadway in the US and all the major capital cities of the world, not to mention several languages that it will be translated into. I expect it to be a phenomenal box-office success with the author being conferred with a chieftaincy title in Ogoniland. If readers would like to read more about Ken Saro-Wiwa, what books would you recommend to them? OGEZI: I’ll recommend only those works I found illuminating in the course of writing this play, such as Saro-Wiwa’s A Month and a Day, and his short, prophetic story, “Africa Kills Her Sun”, and several internet materials fully acknowledged in my introduction to the play. I didn’t bother to read, and I have no regrets whatsoever, few other works such as Saro-Wiwa’s On a Darkling Plain and Ken Saro-Wiwa (Jnr)’s In the Shadow of a Saint, to mention but two of the most prominent. What is next after Under a Darkling Sky? What are you currently working on? OGEZI: I don’t know as I’m still waiting to hear from God. It may be my first collection of short stories or another play, I don’t know right now. I’m currently working on an evangelistic play which I believe will be more effective than many hell-fire-and-damnation sermons in our churches. I’m also researching for a historical play on a major town in Northern Nigeria. Let it remain nameless in the meantime. Tell us something about you we would never guess from your writing? OGEZI: I have four passions in my life in what I call acronymically the four L’s – Lord, law, literature and love. I’m always in deep communion with the Lord in my daily endeavours and can only act based on His direction. Law brings food to my table as a lawyer, while literature keeps my heartbeat palpitating with life. I’m also a true, honest, committed and passionate lover in the mould of Romeo; in fact, I’m the last love martyr standing on his feet today, no thanks to my childhood addiction to Indian love films!

Introducing my new play: Under a Darkling Sky

Publishers: Hybun Publications International Author: Isaac Attah Ogezi Cover Design: Sylvester Ukut Pay layout: Sundex Final Touch, Suleja. Number of pages: 92 ABOUT THE PLAY: “… I have devoted my intellectual and material resources, my very life, to a cause in which I have total belief and from which I cannot be blackmailed or intimidated … In the quest for justice for my people, neither prison nor the threat of death nor death itself could ever deter me. No imprisonment nor death can stop our ultimate victory.” Those were the last defiant words of Ken Saro-Wiwa to the kangaroo tribunal, the Ogoni Civil Disturbances Tribunal, that tried, convicted and sentenced him along with eight other Ogonis to be hanged on trumped-up charges of complicity and incitement of the deaths of four Ogoni elders in May, 1994. Under a Darkling Sky dramatizes the life and times of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the renowned environmental activist-cum-writer, who placed his community far above his individual life, and had to pay the supreme price by dying for his Ogoni people in the Niger Delta region of the West African nation-state called Nigeria. WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THE AUTHOR “With his fresh and inventive use of language, excellent dramaturgy and multifaceted characterization, Isaac Attah Ogezi has all it takes to reinvent and reinvigorate the declining Nigerian drama.” -Ismail Bala Garba, poet and literary scholar. “Isaac Attah Ogezi, with this outing, the third in his emergent repertoire, is steadfastly making his way to reckoning as an accomplished literary dramatist from the north of the Niger.” -Denja Abdullahi, poet and culture expert. “Over the years, Isaac Attah Ogezi has consistently carved a niche for himself as an important dramatist on Nigeria’s literary landscape, what with the outstanding dramatic outputs from his creative arsenal. Already prize-laden, his recent award of ANA/Esiaba Irobi Prize for Drama 2011 for the record second time consecutively was the icing on the cake.” -Patrick Oguejiofor, author of Sin of the Father (2011). “With the variety I have observed so far from his creative forte, not to mention his altruistic love for humanity in his plays, it is easy to say that the young Nigerian playwright, Isaac Attah Ogezi, is a star whose iridescent light will not twinkle so briefly like a match-flare in the wind but linger on so long in our literary firmament.” -Ahmed Maiwada, author of Musdoki (2010). THE AUTHOR Isaac Attah Ogezi is a legal practitioner, poet, playwright, short story writer and literary essayist. He currently practises law at Keffi, Nasarawa State. This is his third published play, after Waiting for Savon (2009) and Casket of Her Dreams (2010).

Introducing my new play: Under a Darkling Sky Publishers: Hybun Publications International Author: Isaac Attah Ogezi Cover Design: Sylvester Ukut Pay layout: Sundex Final Touch, Suleja. Number of pages: 92 ABOUT THE PLAY: “… I have devoted my intellectual and material resources, my very life, to a cause in which I have total belief and from which I cannot be blackmailed or intimidated … In the quest for justice for my people, neither prison nor the threat of death nor death itself could ever deter me. No imprisonment nor death can stop our ultimate victory.” Those were the last defiant words of Ken Saro-Wiwa to the kangaroo tribunal, the Ogoni Civil Disturbances Tribunal, that tried, convicted and sentenced him along with eight other Ogonis to be hanged on trumped-up charges of complicity and incitement of the deaths of four Ogoni elders in May, 1994. Under a Darkling Sky dramatizes the life and times of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the renowned environmental activist-cum-writer, who placed his community far above his individual life, and had to pay the supreme price by dying for his Ogoni people in the Niger Delta region of the West African nation-state called Nigeria. WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THE AUTHOR “With his fresh and inventive use of language, excellent dramaturgy and multifaceted characterization, Isaac Attah Ogezi has all it takes to reinvent and reinvigorate the declining Nigerian drama.” -Ismail Bala Garba, poet and literary scholar. “Isaac Attah Ogezi, with this outing, the third in his emergent repertoire, is steadfastly making his way to reckoning as an accomplished literary dramatist from the north of the Niger.” -Denja Abdullahi, poet and culture expert. “Over the years, Isaac Attah Ogezi has consistently carved a niche for himself as an important dramatist on Nigeria’s literary landscape, what with the outstanding dramatic outputs from his creative arsenal. Already prize-laden, his recent award of ANA/Esiaba Irobi Prize for Drama 2011 for the record second time consecutively was the icing on the cake.” -Patrick Oguejiofor, author of Sin of the Father (2011). “With the variety I have observed so far from his creative forte, not to mention his altruistic love for humanity in his plays, it is easy to say that the young Nigerian playwright, Isaac Attah Ogezi, is a star whose iridescent light will not twinkle so briefly like a match-flare in the wind but linger on so long in our literary firmament.” -Ahmed Maiwada, author of Musdoki (2010). THE AUTHOR Isaac Attah Ogezi is a legal practitioner, poet, playwright, short story writer and literary essayist. He currently practises law at Keffi, Nasarawa State. This is his third published play, after Waiting for Savon (2009) and Casket of Her Dreams (2010).

Announcing my new play: Casket of Her Dreams

Publishers: Hybun Publications International

Author: Isaac Attah Ogezi

Cover Design: Sylvester Ukut

Pay layout: Isu Media Ltd (Diego Okenyedo Odoh)

Number of pages: 95


ABOUT THE PLAY:

Withdrawn from school, Zulaira, a girl in her early teens, is forced to marry a
man old enough to be her father in order to save the life of her stepmother.
Unfortunately, her father has reckoned without the tragedy that follows. On the
first night in her new home, she kills her husband when he comes to consummate
the marriage, an act that makes her a fugitive of the law. What happens next
when she is eventually arrested to face the full wrath of the law? Will she
escape the toils of justice? What becomes of her education? These and
several other questions are answered in this thrilling play. Told in simple and
lucid language, Casket of Her Dreams, is a play that will surely appeal to
children as well as adults.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Isaac Attah Ogezi is a legal practitioner, poet, playwright, short story writer
and literary essayist. He is published in several national and international
anthologies, online journals and dailies. His plays, poems and short stories
have won him numerous literary awards including ANA/Esiaba Irobi Prize for Drama
2010, AWF/Zulu Sofola Award for Drama 2009 and CHD/Ford Foundation Award for
Creative Writing 2010, amongst others. A fellow of UNPFA/Nollywood Scripwriting
and British Council Radiophonics programmes, he currently practises law at
Keffi, Nasarawa State. This is his second published play, after Waiting for
Savon(2009).


WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT THE PLAY:

1. "Simply marvellous!" - Ogabidu, Benue ANA Chairman.

2. "It came as no surprise that you can share your success through Casket of Her
Dreams. I went through it. The play is manifestly exceptional. Congralutions."
- Dominic Ochenehi, an Abuja-based lawyer.

3. "The production is great. The subject matter is as old as the hills but the
play is definitely engaging. Congratulations and more ink to your pen." -
Patrick Oguijefor, Abuja ANA.


HOW TO GET COPIES OF THIS PLAY:

All you need do is to indicate interest and I'll send you a copy. A copy goes
for N500 only excluding postage.

My thanks to my publishers, Hybun Publications International, Tena Green,
Hybun's US-based editor (greentmg@yahoo.com), Okenyodo Diego Odoh, my beloved
brother for the masterful typesetting, and Sylvester Ukut, for the beautiful
cover design. This is our joint dream that came to fruition without having a
need for a casket! Thanks. Na gode!

Isaac Attah Ogezi

Announcing my new play: Casket of Her Dreams

Withdrawn from school, Zulaira, a girl in her early teens, is forced to marry a man old enough to be her father in order to save the life of her stepmother. Unfortunately, her father has reckoned without the tragedy that follows. On the first night in her new home, she kills her husband when he comes to consummate the marriage, an act that makes her a fugitive of the law. What happens next when she is eventually arrested to face the full wrath of the law? Will she escape the toils of the law? What becomes of her education? These and several other questions are answered in this thrilling play. Told in simple and lucid language, Casket of Her Dreams, is a play that will surely appeal to children as well as adults.


The Author

Isaac Attah Ogezi is a legal practitioner, poet, playwright, short story writer and literary essayist. He is published in several national and international anthologies, online journals and dailies. His plays, poems and short stories have won him numerous literary awards including ANA, AWF/Zulu Sofola Award for Drama 2009 and CHD/Ford Foundation Award for Creative Writing 2010, amongst others. A fellow of UNPFA/Nollywoood Scripwriting and British Council Radiophonics programmes, he currently practises law at Keffi, Nasarawa State. This is his second published play, after Waiting for Savon(2009).

The Rewards of Stubbornness in Nwokeji’s Red Nest

By
Isaac Attah Ogezi
Thelma Nwokeji’s debut children’s novel, Red Nest, is a great contribution to children’s literature. Set in Akani village, the novel moves in a hair-raising speed to an unnamed part of a city. It revolves around the life of Ike, a clever and stubborn twelve-year-old who is dissatisfied with his poor parents, their wretched home, the endless farm work, their inability to send him and his elder brother Emeka to school and a catalogue of other grudges. One day his uncle in Alabeke (America) arrives at the village for the Christmas holidays and offers to take either him or Emeka to the white man’s land. The choice is thrown open and the criteria for the selection will be based on a week’s training on reading and writing and the better of the two will be chosen in an aptitude test to go to the white man’s land. But Ike, a dreamer, instead of staying glued to his books, would rather prefer to live in his dreams than realities, “His mind would drift away to thoughts of being in the white man’s land, wearing new and fine clothes and speaking English just like Ekene” (p. 12). As his dreams grow wild, so do realities slip away from him, and he soon discovers much to his chagrin that “Emeka would pass the test ahead of him, and that he would be the one to stay behind and continue with the difficult farm work that had no ending” (p. 13). To forestall this likely fate, Ike resorts to Plan B with deadly consequences which nearly claim his life. His crooked, short-cut plan, Plan B, is to befriend his uncle’s son, while his elder brother labours with the lessons and in the end, he would be his uncle’s son’s choice rather than merit. This backfires and he is kidnapped by two men in a red car and made to undergo a nightmarish experience that makes his hair’s breadth escape a miracle. In the end, he emerges a much matured boy, shorn of the mists of his childish dreams.
From this work, we learn that writing for children as an adult is not an all-comers’ field but a rather specialized form of art by far harder than teaching them. Nwokeji has been able to successfully bring herself down to the level of comprehension of her target children – within the age-range of eight to sixteen – in terms of language and the complexity of plot. The story is fast-paced, gripping and suspenseful enough to keep the children’s interest from the first page to the end, non-stop, with less emphasis on difficult psychology and symbolism. This work will surely encourage the present dying reading culture among our children, given its highly entertaining value.
The didactic lessons for children in this novel are numerous and straightforward – the rewards of stubbornness and impatience when one takes the short-cut routes to success. The major character Ike is quite unlike his elder brother Emeka who is a year older. He despises his parents and mocks their poverty. He hates farm work with a passion, “he wondered why he had to suffer so much in return for very little. He did not know any other child of his age who went to the farm everyday.” (p.6). He dislikes the idea that he is not sent to school because of lack of money: “Their excuse was always that there was no money. There was no money for adequate food, no money for adequate clothes and no money to go to school like some children did. He was tired of their ‘no money’ catchphrase” (p. 19). Apart from his parents whom he holds to disdain and interrupts at will, he carries these ill-manners to people outside. When he loses his way to his uncle’s house in the village, an old man offers to help him only to show him the wrong house. Ike riles at the old man: “This is a rubbish house. Why did you waste my time when you did not know Mr. Obi’s house? Oh, you have deceived me you old man. Go away from me!” (p. 20). Appalled by this rude behaviour from a mere child, the old man tries to appease him further only to be told off by Ike: “Go away from me, you deceitful man” (p.20). On his way home, he runs into a woman who shows him the way to his uncle’s house and “he sprinted away from the woman without even saying a word of gratitude” (p. 24). In a word, the trouble Ike faces is a didactic lesson for recalcitrant children like him to learn from and to make amends. Also, the spate of child-kidnappings and violence against children is well chronicled in this moving work. We see how children are made victims of their parents’ wealth when child-kidnappers come calling. The writer shows the advanced level by which child-kidnappings have reached in the country and seems to be calling the urgent attention of all stakeholders to the present laxity of our security system. The underworld of child-kidnapping, the dreaded Red Nest, headed by the merciless Master who uses blackmail to recruit his lieutenants and terror to silence them, is starkly exposed. We see a complex terror organization, how the Red Nest bristles with little “bridling”, how they go after their victims’ parents to claim their ransoms, with nurses and doctors in their employ, etc.
For a debut children’s novelist, Nwokeji is a maestro of the art of children’s storytelling. She tells a thrilling, unputdownable story in the class of Achebe’s Chike and the River, Ekwensi’s An African Night’s Entertainment, Juju Rock, The Passport of Mallam Iliya, Samakwe and the Highway Robbers and Drummer Boy and Eddie Iroh’s Without a Silver Spoon. Her use of language is deliberately simple for her target audience without being so flat that her readers will not have to consult the dictionary every now and then to increase their vocabulary. The symbolic image in the use of “red” is very significant – “Red Nest” (pp. 50, 52 and 56), “red roof” (p. 24) and “red car” (p. 25). Apart from the beauty of the colour “red”, it also symbolizes danger by which the central character Ike or our children are surrounded with. However, “Red Nest” as a title of a children’s book appears rather complex for them, the same way as the use of “Scarface” and “Hairyface” (pp. 27 – 30) for the characters Kodo and Vynn before their identity was later made known. The inclusion of a glossary at the end of the book would have been helpful to explain some Igbo words used in the text which are not self-explanatory such as “Alabake” (pp. 10, 17 and 19), “umunnaya” (p. 7), “Eziokwu” (p. 7), “Itiboribo” (p. 13) and “opi” (p. 23). The non-Igbo readers will find those words strange which may impede comprehension.
Perhaps, the most glaring snag to an otherwise beautiful story is the writer’s attempt to write a crime thriller in the mould of a James Hadley Chase novel instead of a serious work of art. This makes the work suffer from unbelievability. It is not convincing to the readers that a twelve-year-old boy Ike said to be “very clever” (p. 11), does not know the way to his parents’ home in a village after his abortive plan to visit his uncle. As if this is not enough, when Ike is apparently kidnapped and the opportunity comes for his escape, he tells the village man who sees him in the company of the strange and fearsome twosome that they are looking for Mr. Obi’s house just returned from the USA. Ike surprisingly keeps sealed lips when one of the two men lies that they are his uncles! Most importantly, there are highly improbable scenes like when Tom, a member of the kidnap gang, suddenly takes pity on Ike and decides to help him escape in a classic deus ex machina. The writer takes this improbability further when Ike escapes and a search is mounted for him. Adams, also a member of the kidnap racket, finds him in a van and suddenly “imagined several other possibilities for himself” (p. 113). These possibilities as quickly as they came, morphed into a decision to help the boy escape again, “And he decided that neither the money he could make from Mr. Obi nor the token reward from Master for finding Ike could compensate for his independence”(p. 113). Improbabilities are the stuff by which thrillers are made of and that accounts for the reason why thrillers do not make serious literature. Also, for a book from new home-based publishers, Mazariyya Books, it is beautifully illustrated with the editing almost flawless save for a few typographical and grammatical errors such as: “father’s reincarnate” (p. 12), “only one shoe” (p. 19) instead of “only one pair of shoes”, “under the blazing sun” (p. 19), “First you ask of …” (p. 23), “heading to “(pp. 28, 41, and 98), “a stone throw” (p. 57), “Majority of the children” (pp. 58 and 68), “towardss the hostel” (p. 68) and “kola was asthmatic” (p. 101).
In conclusion, Nwokeji, an architect and a mother, has shown in this work that she understands the psychology of children very well and in her hands language can be made mallaeable for their intake. For a debut children’s novel, Red Nest, is comparable to any work by the grandfather of Nigeria’s children’s literature, the late Cyprian Ekwensi. If Nwokeji can only infuse more verisimilitude into her creative fort, she may yet lift her future stories from the muck of being merely thrillers to the class of serious literature for children and possibly adult readers.